الملامح التضاريسية لحوض البحر الأحمر

الملخص EN

This article cares to show geomorphological characteristics of the Red Sea Basin and to explain them according to geological facts besides provisioning of a recent scientific data base depending on scientific studies and research done there during the last decades.

Those scientific sources showed much of results such as that the Red Sea is a rift basin of a tectonic origin and relatively of recent formation containing many of rift depressions which form part of its principal geomorphology.

The formation of the eastern rift valley refers to a southward propagation of topographic swelling which included the western margin of Arabia and Afar region prior to a preceding 30 million years.

There are many volcanic islands and incised outcrops of coral limestone which form distinctive coastal phenomena of some islands besides many other geological and geomorphological characteristics that coincide with submerged landsforms of the Red Sea basin.

Also, The Red Sea basin exhibits many coastal geomorphological phenomena that included coastal areas, spits, lagoons, sabkhas, Sea Islands, columns, spits, dead terraces of coral, and internal lands which consist of exposed marine limestone.

The spurs and grooves found on the reefs of the northern lagoons of the Red Sea basin have longitudinal axes due to the nature of refracted sea waves.

The coastal landforms of the Red Sea basin show a retreating coast line.

There is a necessity to conserve the geomorphological environment of the Red Sea basin in the shadow of excessive economic exploitation of its huge resources and the emergence of regional and global rivalry that connect with military and political tensions.